As working machines there are known various types of working machines such as, for example, hydraulic shovels and wheel loaders and the like, or various types of haulage vehicle such as dump trucks or the like. Yet further demands for exhaust gas purification are being made upon such working machines. Therefore purification of their exhaust gases is pursued by using components which are designed and manufactured at higher accuracy, and by controlling their engines at a higher level.
As one example, the case of filters will be explained. In order to perform high accuracy engine control, good quality fuel and good quality engine oil are required. Due to this, high performance fuel filters and oil filters are used, which can eliminate more minute dirt and moisture and so on.
Since these kinds of high performance filters are higher priced as compared to conventional filters, counterfeit products and poor quality goods can easily appear upon the market. If an inferior or counterfeit product is used, it is not possible to get the anticipated engine performance, and it is not possible to obtain purified exhaust gases. Moreover, if the use of low performance or counterfeit products is continued, there is also a possibility of causing damage to the fuel injection device or to the engine itself, and the service life may be deteriorated.
In recent years, IC tags which are capable of wireless communication have come into use, and have been proposed for performing authentication processing and goods management. As a first prior art technique, it is known to use an IC tag as a remote key, and to cancel locking of an engine when a user who possesses the IC tag approaches a vehicle (refer to Patent Document #1). And, as a second prior art technique, it is known to attach IC tags to books, and to prevent books which have not been paid for being carried out of a shop by exchanging signals with the IC tags at a security gate (refer to Patent Document #2).
As a third prior art technique, a component management information system is also known in which memories which store component information are attached to components in advance, and in which it is arranged for it to be possible to build data bases which are at the same level on the side of a machine and on the side of an information manager by, when a component different from the one shipped from the factory is fitted to a machine, transmitting information about that component from the machine to a server (refer to Patent Document #3).
As a fourth prior art technique, it is also known to attach to a filter a tag in which information is stored which shows that the filter is a genuine product, and to decide whether or not a filter is a genuine product by a controller reading out the information which is stored in the tag (refer to Patent Document #4).
Patent Document #1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2000-233719;
Patent Document #2: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2005-135313;
Patent Document #3: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2004-062675;
Patent Document #4: Japanese Patent Publication 2002-531237.